Tools

"... Context-aware systems offer entirely new opportunities for application developers and for end users by gathering context data and adapting systems behavior accordingly. Especially in combination with mobile devices these mechanisms are of high value and are used to increase usability tremendously. I ..."

Context-aware systems offer entirely new opportunities for application developers and for end users by gathering context data and adapting systems behavior accordingly. Especially in combination with mobile devices these mechanisms are of high value and are used to increase usability tremendously. In this pap er, we present common architecture principles of context-aware systems and derive a layered conceptual design framework to explain the di&amp;#64256;erent elements common to most context-aware architectures. Based on these design principles, we introduce various existing context-aware systems focusing on context-aware middleware and frameworks, which ease the development of context-aware applications. We discuss various approaches and analyze important aspects in context-aware computing on the basis of the presented systems.

by
Jason I. Hong
- In MobiSYS ’04: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on mobile systems, applications, and services, 2004

"... Privacy is the most often-cited criticism of ubiquitous computing, and may be the greatest barrier to its long-term success. However, developers currently have little support in designing software architectures and in creating interactions that are effective in helping end-users manage their privacy ..."

Privacy is the most often-cited criticism of ubiquitous computing, and may be the greatest barrier to its long-term success. However, developers currently have little support in designing software architectures and in creating interactions that are effective in helping end-users manage their privacy. To address this problem, we present Confab, a toolkit for facilitating the development of privacy-sensitive ubiquitous computing applications. The requirements for Confab were gathered through an analysis of privacy needs for both end-users and application developers. Confab provides basic support for building ubiquitous computing applications, providing a framework as well as several customizable privacy mechanisms. Confab also comes with extensions for managing location privacy. Combined, these features allow application developers and end-users to support a spectrum of trust levels and privacy needs.

"... The vast majority of advances in sensor network research over the last five years have focused on the development of a series of small-scale (100s of nodes) testbeds and specialized applications (e.g., environmental monitoring, etc.) that are built on low-powered sensor devices that self-organize to ..."

The vast majority of advances in sensor network research over the last five years have focused on the development of a series of small-scale (100s of nodes) testbeds and specialized applications (e.g., environmental monitoring, etc.) that are built on low-powered sensor devices that self-organize to form application-specific multihop wireless networks. We believe that sensor networks have reached an important crossroads in their development. The question we address in this paper is how to propel sensor networks from their smallscale application-specific network origins, into the commercial mainstream of people’s every day lives; the challenge being: how do we develop large-scale general-purpose sensor networks for the general public (e.g., consumers) capable of supporting a wide variety of applications in urban settings (e.g., enterprises, hospitals, recreational areas, towns, cities, and the metropolis). We propose MetroSense, a new people-centric paradigm for urban sensing at the edge of the Internet, at very large scale. We discuss a number of challenges, interactions and characteristics in urban sensing applications, and then present the MetroSense architecture which is based fundamentally on three design principles: network symbiosis, asymmetric design, and localized interaction. The ability of MetroSense to scale to very large areas is based on the use of an opportunistic sensor networking approach. Opportunistic sensor networking leverages mobility-enabled interactions and provides coordination between people-centric mobile sensors, static sensors and edge wireless access nodes in support of opportunistic sensing, opportunistic tasking, and opportunistic data collection. We discuss architectural challenges including providing sensing coverage with sparse mobile sensors, how to hand off roles and responsibilities between sensors, improving network performance and connectivity using adaptive multihop, and importantly, providing security and privacy for people-centric sensors and data.

...terogeneous sensor networks at large scale. These proposals begin with the assumption that the sensors and sensor networks necessary for application deployment and data collection already exist. Gaia =-=[37]-=-, Aura [38], Endeavor [39] and Oxygen [40] are representative of the pervasive networks approach to systems architecture. These present middleware solutions to facilitate the dynamic negotiation betwe...

"... Lime (Linda in a Mobile Environment) is a model and middleware supporting the development of applications that exhibit physical mobility of hosts, logical mobility of agents, or both. Lime adopts a coordination perspective inspired by work on the Linda model. The context for computation, represented ..."

Lime (Linda in a Mobile Environment) is a model and middleware supporting the development of applications that exhibit physical mobility of hosts, logical mobility of agents, or both. Lime adopts a coordination perspective inspired by work on the Linda model. The context for computation, represented in Linda by a globally accessible, persistent tuple space, is refined in Lime to transient sharing of identically-named tuple spaces carried by individual mobile units. Tuple spaces are also extended with a notion of location and programs are given the ability to react to specified states. The resulting model provides a minimalist set of abstractions that facilitate rapid and dependable development of mobile applications. In this paper, we illustrate the model underlying Lime, provide a formal semantic characterization for the operations it makes available to the application developer, present its current design and implementation, and discuss lessons learned in developing applications that involve physical mobility.

"... Abstract. We present our results of the conceptual design and the implementation of ubiquitous computing applications using smart identification technologies. First, we describe such technologies and their potential application areas, then give an overview of some of the applications we have develop ..."

Abstract. We present our results of the conceptual design and the implementation of ubiquitous computing applications using smart identification technologies. First, we describe such technologies and their potential application areas, then give an overview of some of the applications we have developed. Based on the experience we have gained from developing these systems, we point out design concepts that we have found useful for structuring and implementing such applications. Building upon these concepts, we have created two frameworks based on Jini (i.e., distributed Java objects) and Web Services to support the development of ubiquitous computing applications that make use of smart identification technology. We describe our prototype frameworks, discuss the underlying concepts and present some lessons learned.

...ese applications are often based on non-trivial interactions between multiple tagged objects. We found that existing ubicomp infrastructures such as Savant [10], Cooltown [6], one.world [4], Gaia OS [=-=11]-=-, or Stanford Interactive Workspaces [5] do not provide appropriate application level frameworks to substantially support the implementation of our applications. Although these infrastructures provide...

"... ABSTRACT * The advent of the internet has revolutionized the field of advertising by providing a whole new path for reaching potential customers. Studies show that online advertising is, on the whole, extremely effective and that consumer acceptance of online advertising is comparable to traditional ..."

ABSTRACT * The advent of the internet has revolutionized the field of advertising by providing a whole new path for reaching potential customers. Studies show that online advertising is, on the whole, extremely effective and that consumer acceptance of online advertising is comparable to traditional media[7][8]. One of the reasons for the high effectiveness of online advertising is that users interact with the web at a far more personal and intimate level than they interact with other advertising media like the radio or television. Pervasive computing environments deal with users at an even more intimate level; hence such environments are even better advertising platforms than the web. Pervasive environments allow the delivery of relevant advertising in suitable ways to selected consumers. In this paper, we examine some of the possibilities of pervasive advertising as well as some of the issues involved.

Ubiquitous computing has fueled the idea of constructing sentient, information-rich &quot;smart spaces&quot; that extend the boundaries of traditional computing to encompass physical spaces, embedded devices, sensors, and other machinery. To achieve this, smart spaces need to capture situational information so that they can detect changes in context and adapt themselves accordingly. However, without considering basic security issues ubiquitous computing environments could be rife with vulnerabilities. Ubiquitous computing environments impose new requirements on security. Security services, like authentica- tion and access control, have to be non-intrusive, intelli- gent, and able to adapt to the rapidly changing contexts of the spaces. We present a ubiquitous security mechanism that integrates context-awareness with automated reasoning to perform authentication and access control in ubiquitous computing environments.

"... Wireless sensor networks are being developed for a variety of applications. With the continuing advances in network and application design, appropriate middleware is needed to provide both standardized and portable system abstractions and the capability to support and coordinate concurrent applicati ..."

Wireless sensor networks are being developed for a variety of applications. With the continuing advances in network and application design, appropriate middleware is needed to provide both standardized and portable system abstractions and the capability to support and coordinate concurrent applications on sensor networks. In this paper, we first identify several design principles for such a middleware. These principles motivate a cluster-based lightweight middleware framework that separates application semantics from the underlying hardware, operating system, and network infrastructure. We propose a layered architecture for each cluster that consists of a cluster control layer and a resource management layer. Key design issues and related challenges within this framework that deserve further investigation are outlined. Finally, we discuss a technique for energy-efficient resource allocation in a single-hop cluster, which serves as the basic primitive for the development of the resource management layer.

...mentation for real-time embedded systems [16], [17], or to accommodate wireless applications [18]. Also, a CORBA based user-centric and space-aware middleware for ubiquitous computing is developed in =-=[19]-=-. Many new research challenges arise in applying such technologies in the context of WSNs, including feasibility of ad hoc network deployment, support for energy-aware data-centric computation, integr...

"... To operate in dynamic and potentially unknown scenarios a mobile client discovers the local services that match its requirements, and interacts with these to obtain the application functionality. However, mobile environments are populated by heterogeneous mobile service platforms; these range from d ..."

To operate in dynamic and potentially unknown scenarios a mobile client discovers the local services that match its requirements, and interacts with these to obtain the application functionality. However, mobile environments are populated by heterogeneous mobile service platforms; these range from discovery protocols including SLP, UPnP and Jini to different styles of service interaction paradigms e.g. Remote Procedure Call, Publish-Subscribe and agent based solutions. Therefore given this type of heterogeneity, utilizing single discovery and interaction systems is not optimal as the client will only be able to use the services available to that particular platform. Hence, in this paper we present an adaptive middleware solution to this problem. ReMMoC is a Web-Services based reflective middleware that allows mobile clients to be developed independently of both discovery and interaction mechanisms. We describe the architecture, which dynamically reconfigures to match the current service environment. Finally, we investigate the incurred performance overhead such dynamic behaviour brings to the discovery and interaction process. I.

...hich is used to invoke the service after the service has been discovered. Examples are: Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) [3] with SOAP [4], Salutation [5] with Sun Remote Procedure Call (RPC), and Gaia =-=[6]-=- with Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) [7]. Thirdly, interaction independent discovery protocols are available e.g. Service Location Protocol (SLP) [8]. These can be integrated with a...

"... Pervasive computing environments with their interconnected devices and services promise seamless integration of digital infrastructure into our everyday lives. While the focus of current research is on how to connect new devices and build useful applications to improve functionality, the security ..."

Pervasive computing environments with their interconnected devices and services promise seamless integration of digital infrastructure into our everyday lives. While the focus of current research is on how to connect new devices and build useful applications to improve functionality, the security and privacy issues in such environments have not been explored in any depth.